Calaniot
by Larki13
Summary: Ziva confronts her father after her team rescues her from Somalia.


"Ziva. Ziva, _metuka sheli_, look at me. Please."

The Mossad liaison stood frozen at the window, standing stiffly as if she had been turned to stone. The man behind her watched her back move as she breathed for a few tense, silent seconds. He took a step toward her, but halted when his daughter pressed her body closer to the windowsill. Farther away from him.

"Ziva, what is wrong? What have I done?"

A bitter, hysterical laugh escaped Ziva's lips, the first sound she had uttered since entering Eli's office to offer her resignation as an agent of Mossad.

"What have you done? You left me there. You sent me to Somalia. You left me there,_ abba_. You let me rot in that hell-hole - you never tried to contact me, to see if I was alive. They beat me, and they starved me, and _you_ - you did nothing. And every night, when they had tired of me, I lay there and I hoped that you would save me, that you would prove that you loved me. But you never came. What is family to you, Papa? Am I worth so little that you would toss me to the lions with a thought or a care? Without ever once wondering if I was alive, if I even wanted to be? You abandoned your daughter, Papa. Your last remaining child. That is what you have done."

To Eli's ears, Ziva's words seemed to echo, her tearful accusations replaying in his mind. She was breathing heavily now, and he could hear the sobs catching in her chest with every breath. She would not cry in front of him. She didn't trust him.

"Ziva...I...you are right."

He lowered his head to avoid the sun, whose harsh light was beginning to bleach the office walls, and studied the carpet as he tried to collect his thoughts.

"I sent you to Somalia to gather intelligence on the terrorist camp because I knew you were my best agent. I knew that you had the best chance of being able to get in and out safely. I was wrong to send you there. It was too dangerous. I was too reckless. I have been throwing around your life like a matkot ball, and I am sorry. I love you, Ziva. You are my only child now, and I do not know where I would be if you had...if you had not come back.

"Why did I not rescue you? I tried. I monitored your messages and reports, and when you stopped contacting us I knew something horrible had happened. I traveled to the Mossad camp in Ethiopia, but they knew no more than I did. I appealed to the President, to the Prime Minister, but they did not respond with anything more than condolences and excuses. 'I'm sorry, but we cannot spare the money to support a rescue team.' And perhaps that was true. We are at war, and expenses are limited. But Ziva, I tried. I called in your old team members, your friends at Mossad and in the IDF, and we began to plan a rescue operation. Then Leon called me, told me they were about to conduct their own rescue attempt. We were not prepared, and they left first. They rescued you."

The room was silent.

Eli eased down into his chair, watching his daughter intently. She seemed more relaxed, but he wanted to share something else with her, a memory that had crept into his mind many times during the last few months.

"Ziva, do you remember when you were a child, about seven or eight, and I took you and Ari to Jerusalem to see the _calaniot_?"

His daughter turned her head slightly, and he imagined that he saw a faint smile beginning on the sliver of her face he could see.

"I told you how they were named, do you remember? When you learned they were named so because they remind us of a bride on her wedding day, you wanted to pick a handful and take them home so that you could be as beautiful as a_ calanit _for your wedding when you were older. Ari reminded you that it was against the law to pick wildflowers, and you told him that his bride would be even uglier than he was."

Ziva snorted. Eli smiled.

"I remember. Then I picked a flower right in front of him and told him that if he wanted to live with an ugly woman for the rest of his life, then that was his business, but I would make sure that I was the most beautiful woman on the planet when my wedding day came."

She turned to look at her father, the smiles still lingering on both of their faces. She studied him for a moment, her hands braced against the warm sill of the window behind her.

"I forgive you, Papa."

_Metuka sheli _- My sweet one (female form)

_Abba _- Informal form of father (daddy)

_Calanit/calaniot _- (s/p) red flower common in Mediterranean region, especially Israel.


End file.
